China Blocks HBO After John Oliver's Last Week Tonight Mockery of Xi Jinping (scmp.com) 163
News agency AFP reports: After mocking censors working overtime to delete comparisons of Chinese President Xi Jinping with the cartoon bear, comedian John Oliver and now the website of TV giant HBO have fallen victim to Beijing's censorship machine. Chinese authorities blocked HBO's site in China, just days after Oliver took Xi to task, anti-censorship and monitoring group GreatFire.org said on Saturday. The website was still not accessible on Monday. HBO joins a long list of Western media outlets that have had their websites blocked in China including The New York Times, Facebook and Twitter.
Slashdot prepare to be banned. (Score:3, Funny)
Deep in the Hundred Acre Wood,
Where Christopher Robin plays.
You'll find the enchanted neighborhood,
of Christopher's childhood days.
A donkey named Eeyore is his friend.
And Kanga and Little Roo.
There's Rabbit and Piglet.
And there's Owl.
But most of all Winnie the Pooh!
Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh,
Chubby, little cubby all stuffed with fluff.
He's Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh,
Willy, nilly, silly old bear.
And HBO blocks John Oliver in Canada... (Score:3, Informative)
...so we all turn to VPNs & piracy for the simple ability to access content
Re: And HBO blocks John Oliver in Canada... (Score:1)
What are you talking about? We have HBO in the US too.
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Ignorance is shameful.. Given US literacy rates have not improved in 10 years (still 14% cant read) it is somewhat understandable.
Get yourself a passport and travel outside the US, open your eyes.
US literacy rate - 86% ( 32 million adults in the U.S. can't read.. which is interesting as that is the same as the population of Canada)
Canadian literacy rate - also unchanged for the last 10 years or so at around 99%
Notice the second country one on the list of "first world nations"?
United States
Canada
Germany
Unit
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It's a lot worse than that. [cnbc.com]
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By "richer" i assume you really mean "more indebted to the chinese"?
The U.S. debt to China is $1.19 trillion as of March 2018
Canada is a member of NATO, so you are saying you will nuke allies?
Dont worry, the entire world knows your track record for actual wars. Seems you did OK in WW2 when everyone was in it together, but every "War" you have went into since then.. not so much on the success front. Fuck.. even the vietnamese had you pack up and go home.
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Too bad you cant create a sentence.
"
America is richer than your shit hole country (fragment). That makes better and more powerful (fragment). If we choose to (Fragment). We could nuke your entire country out of existence and there isn’t a dam (what type of dam, a beaver dam, a man-made dam?) thing you could do about it.
"
Let me fix all the grammer and spelling mistakes for you, as clearly my country has a much higher literacy rate:
America is richer than your shit hole country, and that makes us better
Re: And HBO blocks John Oliver in Canada... (Score:4, Funny)
You were on a roll.
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Oh ya? Well my daddy can beat up your daddy! Not that it's important, but as long as you're arguing with kindergarten level rhetoric I guess I can play along.
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A few Americans are richer than your shit hole country.
FTFY. :-p You're not one of the few Americans, so tough luck.
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Roads in China are in MUCH better shape.
Uh huh. Well, now that we're now buying so much of their mass-produced plastic crap at bullshit rates of exchange, maybe we can afford to think about infrastructure again...
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John Oliver isn't about to learn French nor wear a toque to comply with your laws, and your money gets stuck in our vending machines, so take off hoser
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What’s the point of airing a comedy show in a country where people can’t understand what a joke is?
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The difference is that I wouldn't worry about mysteriously disappearing in Canada for using a VPN. In China you might find yourself "working" in a North Korea mine. To be fair, I have no evidence that China or North Korea would do this. I just have my suspensions.
Re:And HBO blocks John Oliver in Canada... (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, and John Oliver can mock Justin Trudeau as much as he wants and it'll be perfectly allowed. Our PM won't even have the audacity to call it fake news. He'd just take it like a Canadian and probably laugh. To be honest, most Canadians will probably laugh as well - we recognize attempts at humor, as long as it is in good taste (i.e., nothing about minorities, race, religion, sexual orientation or the like).
(Yes, Trump's definition of "fake news" is basically "anything that does not show Donald in a positive light". If you're not ass-kissing, you're fake news. I think it's probably easier to say those outlets that Trump doesn't call Fake News are, and those he calls fake news aren't.)
John Oliver's segments are often reposted officially on YouTube. Sometimes those videos are geolocked to not include Canada. Most of them aren't so you can watch them freely.
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I'm trying to figure out... are you saying that "bad taste" jokes are illegal in Canada, or not likely to be met with laughter?
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(i.e., nothing about minorities, race, religion, sexual orientation or the like).
What?!? That's insane because that is normally the best comedy, you know the real life shit.
I don't want fake made up comedy, I want the real shit. But that's just my opinion I guess.. I can't be alone or I wouldn't be able to find any to watch.
To each their own, what kind of comedy do you enjoy if you exclude those topics? Seems like you would only like 10% of 90% of comics routines
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Thread is about a massive dictatorship with 1.4 billion under their thumb, and the guy in power is consolidsting power, and censoring.
And you wanna wrench it around to beat up on the US. What's it like being a programmed leaf node in the growth of a large memeplex?
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The picture was of a child crying as her parents are interrogated by the border patrol. It's not fake. It may possibly have been miscaptioned in places, but it's entirely appropriate for a story about ICE's abusive behavior towards immigrants and asylum seekers and their children.
In the last week I've seen little kids crying in
- The mall
- Starbucks
- Brio
- Sketchers shoes
- The train
- The airport
- An amusement park
Tired kids cry. Often they are over tired and frustrated because their parents have pushed them beyond their limits.
In my opinion that 2 year old was abused by her mother. Against the father's wishes that mother dragged that child on a month-long journey 1500 miles long, smuggled to the US border by coyotes. She had good reason to be crying. She was kidnapped from her fat
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Err no. People don't get disappeared for using a VPN. Pretty much every Chinese resident and every tourist to boot actually use one. Hell I asked in the office one day how to get access to a website to one person and I got a chorus of 5 different VPN services shouted at me in response. Hell when I bought a SIM card while I was there for a few months the person even told me I will need a VPN to access some of the western stuff I'm used to "like Google Maps", and recommended one too.
In China you get disappear
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Thanks for the clarification. Now I know how Trump would feel if he had any sense of humility. I apologize for spreading false information.
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It's nice to know that they're not a bunch of totalitarian bastards like they're portrayed in the decadent lackey-dog western press.
You aren't AmiMoJo, are you?
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You aren't AmiMoJo, are you?
I have been insulted on Slashdot before, but this one really takes the cake. Excuse me while I go contemplate the rest of my life.
Re:And HBO blocks John Oliver in Canada... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:And HBO blocks John Oliver in Canada... (Score:5, Informative)
Until recently you could watch John Oliver on YouTube - not the full episode but the main story. They've blocked Canadians from accessing it, likely at the behest of Bell Canada who owns TMN Go, the service you need to subscribe to at that link.
That means you need a cable package that includes The Movie Network (extra $20 on top of the cable package, so a minimum of $45)
Compare that with HBO Now at US$14.99
CBC even did an article on it: http://www.cbc.ca/news/busines... [www.cbc.ca]
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This would be YouTube doing the blocking not Canada so a bit different from the article.
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Sorry, but that's because John Oooooliver on HBoooo sounds silly. Sorry.
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Not sure what you are talking about. I have no problem seeing John Oliver on HBO each week it is on. Now they may not have it on HBO Canada website but I never go there so don't really care.
Just checked and looks like you can access past episodes via TMN Go (as long as you subscribe to HBO).
Trump and Xi should date. (Score:3, Insightful)
Thin skinned snowflakes threatened by comedy.
It's not really comedy (Score:4, Interesting)
Thin skinned snowflakes threatened by comedy.
I used to watch John Oliver, back when it was funny.
Raw, un-insightful insults are not funny, and half the country will turn it off to watch something else.
For comparison, check out Dave Chapelle's monologue and hosting of SNL right after the 2016 election. His jokes were witty, showing a wry take on the situation, with a sense of humor.
For a non-contrast, check out any of Bill Maher's monologues - they're invariably pointed, mean, and with no insight or content. He's selling shock and promoting outrage instead of humor(*).
I thought Oliver's original take - getting the audience involved with his antics - was brilliant, and his research brought real issues into focus ...until he ran a segment about a subject I actually knew something about (vitamin D), which was completely in error, and I suddenly realized that I was taking his results as gospel without skepticism. Fell into the trap and didn't know it.
Anyway, I don't like contempt dressed up as comedy. Lena Dunham, Cathy Griffin, Bill Maher, Steven Colbert, and all the rest.
It's not creative, and it's not funny.
(*) Which is sad, because he's the only liberal celebrity I've seen who can rub two thoughts together to come up with a rational argument. He's very bright, but doesn't use his talent in any effective way.
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It's not creative, and it's not funny.
You know who's an expert at knowing what's funny? Comedians.
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You have apparently never watched a comedian that wasn't famous.
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Like "doctors think eating tide pods is a bad idea" still allows for the possibility of a bad one who doesn't.
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You cant compare doctors and comedians. One is highly invested in their career, the other could go back to flipping burgers any day.
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Jesus fuck, do I have to break it down into smaller words for you? I can understand why you enjoy his comedy now...
You have apparently never watched a comedian that wasn't famous.
As you see I was referring to bad comics... not FAMOUS comics, or did you not realize that there are comics that aren't rich and famous? I also love how you picked a comedian that had his own TV show named after him.
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I used to watch John Oliver, back when it was funny
It's uproariously funny now with ratings going vertical, while being highly and accurately critical of Trump and his thugs, and evildoers of all kinds. What's not to like.
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His show was excellent when it was non-partisan. And even during the election, I liked his criticism of Trump, because it seemed well researched, accurate and on-point. However I hated his thinly veiled support for Hillary. Even his attempt at balancing it out felt weak, because you could still tell he took a side. He pissed on the third party candidates as well, despite them having no chance, in an effort to redirect support towards Hillary. It was then that I decided he can't be trusted anymore.
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I agree. His investigative pieces that don't rely on politics tend to be excellent. But those must not have gotten the ratings... Now it's political hit-piece after political rant... I even sent that rat faced bastard Pi dollars for his seed campaign. Whatever happened to shit like that? Nah, easier to dump on Trump.
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easier to dump on Trump
Who could be more deserving of it? And as you say, it does get the ratings.
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It was then that I decided he can't be trusted anymore.
You need to look in the mirror.
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What's not to like.
Well, obviously, the fact that he's critical of Trump. A large portion of humor is critical of something, whether it's a person or a practice or a shared experience. "What's the deal with airline food?" "Lawyers are all scumbags, amiright?"
Recognizing those shared experiences and commenting on them can be funny, but only to those people who agree with you. At least agree to some extent - they need to find some grain of truth in what you're saying. For mundane things, this may be possible for almost every
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Bill Maher's ratings are way up too, like John Oliver's. You seem to forget that the majority of the country enjoys laughing at Trump and his thugs, though obviously they do not enjoy the evil that he does. As the bitter outsider, maybe you should try to understand.
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I think he used to call himself a libertarian, and now calls himself a democrat. At any rate, he doesn't really seem to care about the fiscal side of the equation, so libertarian and democrat have a lot of overlap.
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Southpark has always equally burned every side, you could almost call it Searing.
Don't worry: Oliver serves American empire (Score:1)
Recently John Oliver ran a piece on Venezuelan elections which was quite well debunked [youtube.com] for being the US interest piece it was. Oliver has done comparable pieces serving American interests (some outright, some by silence) including his 2016 election coverage which never closely examined Hillary Clinton's campaign (there's not much there to like from an anti-war perspective when one gets into the details of her record) while dismissing the entirety of Dr. Jill Stein's campaign for one issue he disagreed with.
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I hereby condone your mention of Herman and Chomsky but what the heck is the Barbra Streisand effect?
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> what the heck is the Barbra Streisand effect?
It's when people don't do a very easy fast web search to answer a simple question. Wait, that's something else.
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If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a dictatorship. Chavez holding up a Chomsky book doesn't make it anything else.
He jailed opposition. He shut down opposition news papers. He got the power to rule by decree (the dictate part of dictstorship).
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What about Kim Jong-un? Shouldn't he be there too? :P
Smiles (Score:5, Funny)
China just needs to grin and bear it.
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Not only did you mechanically fail on the quote, you entirely missed the story behind this ban. Now go watch the episode on youtube and get unwhooshed.
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Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Math fail, the raptors cancel out. In fact since you're referring to equations of mechanics, you mechanically failed. *puts on sunglasses*
Missed out (Score:1, Funny)
You too can be a world leader if you stop maturing in grade school....
sigh
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All he does is yell at the camera. I wouldn't watch even if I agreed with what he says. Not really funny.
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Re:It'll take a show with a larger audience to mat (Score:4, Insightful)
Wowsa. I bet you're fun at parties.
John Oliver is great at attacking straw men.
I think he's great at attacking real men. I'm not aware of any straw man arguments he's made. He addresses a real, actual issue on every show.
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When you're not very smart, complicated things are not funny or fun to learn about. Oliver tends to be pretty educational on complicated topics, so I can see how there'd be a subset of the population which would find that frustrating.
Additionally, if you're a rabid believer of anything, someone attacking that thing can feel like an attack on you. And that's not funny. If you can't honestly engage with reality, I can see how Oliver wouldn't be funny as he likely is attacking one of the stupid things you real
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Re:It'll take a show with a larger audience to mat (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:It'll take a show with a larger audience to mat (Score:5, Insightful)
He should run for President.
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He should run for President.
Exactly! "That's not who we are".
Oh, you meant that other president ...
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That didn't stop Obama.
DratatataTISH!
I knew somebody would bite.
Re:It'll take a show with a larger audience to mat (Score:4, Informative)
avoid rational discussion
I hate to point this out, but you and all the other people criticising him here are doing the same thing. No criticism of specific topics he covered or points he raised, just attacking his presentation and style. Okian came about the closest when he mentioned vitamin D, but didn't elaborate.
Can you perhaps give us some specific examples?
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I think it's fair to say that for a long time he, like most people, didn't really expect Trump to win so didn't take him too seriously. On the other hand, I think he does make good political and philosophical/moral arguments, he just tends to preface them with some humorous insults.
I guess staying away from the wider platform issues is his thing - he's more focused on the less often discussed stuff, the things you might not be aware of.
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He does raise awareness to important neglected issues, like e.g. taking full guardianship of somebody's life without their consent, without any evidence of them needing it, without proper medical diagnosis and finally without any training or license required.
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I think he's great at attacking real men. I'm not aware of any straw man arguments he's made.
Actually it's part of his standard comedy formula. Pretty much every attack on a real man is followed up with a strawman argument. The only problem is that those are obviously and hilariously left field for the purpose of comedy.
People who don't understand this comedic style are inclined to believe that he just bullshits about everything, and people with an agenda are happy to reinforce this view of what he says.
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Yes it is propaganda ... except the two lies are incredibly obvious to the point of comedy. The methods share a lot in common but on John Oliver's show the obvious lies exist to solicit laughs rather than share information.
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If you expect a half hour comedy show to enable change in China, I hope you are forever disappointed. Things would have to get really, extremely bad for a half hour comedy show to somehow enable change.
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Oliver sort of reminds me of Ben Elton (if you're not just a Brit, but an old one).
His material is sort of similar to that tall Scotch cunt who swears a lot, but the latter's delivery is totally deadpan whereas Oliver telegraphs the punchline a bit too much for my liking.
Having said that his show's OK, but I prefer that Aussie cunt who swears a lot. The one where he registers a camel as an emotional support animal is fucking hilarious.
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I don't think Oliver tries to have an actual point so much as yank everyone's pants down around their ankles and let the audience see them for what they are worth.